Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Roma (Agenzia Fides) - The United Nations High Commission for Refugees, UNHCR has begun operations to transfer a group of 500 refugees who fled conflict central in southern Somalia, according to a UNHCR report sent to Fides.
Until now these people were in the eastern Ethiopian district of Kebribeyah, close to the border with Somalia. They will be moved to a UNHCR camp at Teferi Ber, recently reopened. These 500 refugees are part of some 4,000 Somalis to whom UNHCR and the Ethiopian authorities granted refugee status. The cases of another 7,000 Somalis who claim they fled fighting and serious insecurity in Somalia will be examined in other camps in eastern Ethiopia.
The Somali region of Ethiopia is already sheltering 16,500 refugees . The new arrivals will bring the total to 20,300. At the height of the Somalia crisis in the early 1990s the region sheltered 628,000 refugees in eight camps. When most of these people returned to Somalia between 1997 and 2005, all the camps except one were closed.
In Somalia violence continues while the Somali Reconciliation Conference supposed to open on 15 July has been postponed to 19 July after a series of bombs exploded in northern Mogadishu where the meeting was to take place. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 16/7/2007 righe 24 parole 285)
